1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates generally to the field of data processing and, in particular to the exchange, display and manipulation of digital media resources such as image and video files.
2. Background Information
Over the years, digital imaging has gained considerable popularity with both consumers and professionals alike. In the past, individuals would use an optical scanner to digitize conventional print-based photographs in order to create an electronic version of the image that could be manipulated and/or exchanged with colleagues as well as friends and family. Although optical scanners remain in use today, digital photography involving the use of digital cameras to capture multiple high-resolution color images which are then digitally stored in a memory storage device rather than onto conventional emulsion-based film, has continued to gain attention. Because the digital images are stored in memory, they may be instantly viewed on the camera (i.e. using an included display screen) without the need for lengthy and costly development processes required by conventional film. Additionally, as soon as the electronic images are captured, they may be uploaded to a computer for subsequent exchange with friends and family via the Internet for example.
In the past, individuals having access to the Internet were limited to using electronic mail as a means of exchanging digital images. Although this was considered a relatively fast way of exchanging images with people in varied locations around the world, the various user interfaces available for sending the images proved difficult to use. For example, if a user wished to email images to multiple parties, the user would either have to send individual email messages to each desired recipient, which proved time consuming, or send a single message addressed to each recipient on a mailing list. Although the mailing list accelerated image distribution, there was no straightforward way to designate that different pictures be sent to different addressees without creating separate mailing lists. Once the recipient received the email, they had to download and save the attached images, which frequently resulted in the user losing track of where they saved these images. Furthermore, to view the images, the user would have to click on the images one by one and open and view them individually in a web browser or other imaging application. If the images were too large to fit the available viewing area, the user would be forced to use a zoom function, if available, in order to view the image in its entirety, or be forced to pan across the image.
With the increase in popularity of the World Wide Web coupled with readily available web page editing software, individuals soon began to create personal web sites to display their various digitized photographs and electronic images to family and friends. Although this method provided one way to display images to a geographically diverse group of people, there was often very little security associated with such personal web sites allowing more than the intended audience to view one's personal images. Additionally, the intended viewing audience of the personal web site would have to repeatedly check back in order to determine if the web site owner/editor posted any new pictures. Further still, all image viewing was required to be conducted while the viewer remained on-line. If a given portfolio contained high-resolution images for example, the downloading and viewing time could be considerable. Furthermore, the user had to have at least some familiarity with how to author a web page containing these pictures.
To address the various privacy issues and other limitations involving the posting of images, photo-sharing services were introduced. As with personal web pages, these photo-sharing web sites enabled individuals to upload and store digital images that could be viewed by others over the Internet. The main difference was that the images would be stored in an area of the web site dedicated to that individual and could be password protected to limit viewing by unintended parties. Notwithstanding this, however, image viewing still needed to be conducted on-line, which resulted in very poor performance due in part to the unreliably variable speed of response from the Internet. Any picture editing functionality provided by the website was even more adversely affected by the unreliable speed of response. Additionally, the service providers hosting the photo-sharing services were required to maintain extremely large file storage capacities as each image is filed on a photo-sharing server for perpetuity.
More recently, digital picture frames have been introduced as another mechanism for sharing digital images. Briefly, digital picture frames are special purpose devices that contain liquid crystal display (LCD) screens (typically in the 5″×7″ or 8″×10″ size range) that are capable of displaying digital images of a limited resolution. One particular digital picture frame available from Ceiva Logic, Inc. of Burbank, Calif. uses a standard telephone line to connect to a picture server in order to download a predefined number of images. Before the images may be downloaded to the digital picture frame, however, the owner or another party authorized by the owner must first upload these images to the picture server through the use of a separate browser-equipped computer or appliance. Additionally, while the digital picture frame is downloading the images, the phone line is tied up thereby preventing other tasks such as web browsing or email to be contemporaneously carried out. Furthermore, digital picture frames do not provide image editing and/or manipulation capabilities. For example, users cannot prevent some pictures from being displayed, or brighten them up, and so on. Also, the images displayed on the digital picture frames cannot be shared with other friends or concurrently viewed by multiple parties. For example, if a grandmother who owns a digital picture frame were to receive images of her granddaughter uploaded from by her son, the grandmother would not be able to share the images with anyone over the Internet let alone anyone outside of the view of the digital picture frame.